The new year is approaching — it’s a time when millions of people will celebrate. There’s lots of New Year’s Eve traditions like the kiss at midnight, the champagne toast and the making of resolutions. Of course celebrating the arrival of the new year isn’t a recent thing — the first New Year’s celebration dates back 4,000 years. Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome, was the first to declare January 1 a national holiday. He named the month after Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates. Around forty-five percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions — and about 25 percent of them give up on their resolutions by the second week of January.
But there are a lot of traditions and other things centered around the new year that are interesting….
Kissing someone at midnight is said to come from the idea that doing so will prevent loneliness during the coming year and ward off evil spirits. Ancient Romans are credited with the kissing tradition because of their Saturnalia festival — a celebration honoring Saturn, the god of time.
The island nation of Kiribati in the Central Pacific is the first location to ring in the new year each year.
American Samoa is the second to last place to celebrate the new year (behind Baker and Howland Islands, which are both uninhabited.)
In the Philippines, roundness is thought to signify prosperity, so on New Year’s Eve locals surround themselves with round shapes, by wearing polka dots, filling their pockets with coins, or by eating circular fruits. The French consume a stack of pancakes every new year. In Scotland and Greece, they believe that the first person who enters your home in the new year will either bring good or bad luck. Make sure you’re careful about who it is and that they walk in using their right foot. In Denmark, the Danes throw unused plates that have been saved up throughout the year at the front doors of family and friends for good luck.
Every year a giant ball droops in Times Square in New York in a countdown to the new year. The ball has been lowered every year since 1907, with the exceptions of 1942 and 1943, when the ceremony was suspended due to the wartime dim-out of lights in New York City.
The idea of a ball “dropping” to signal the passage of time dates back to 1883 when a ball was installed on the top of England’s Royal Observatory at Greenwich, allowing the captains of nearby ships to precisely set their navigational instruments.
But not everyone counts down to the new year by dropping a ball — at the Hershey Press Building in Pennsylvania, a 300-pound, 7-foot tall Hershey Kiss is lowered. And in Mobile, Alabama, a 12-foot, 600-pound electric Moon Pie drops at midnight (that seems a bit strange, because Moon Pies are made in Tennessee.)
So however you celebrate the arrival of the coming year, have a happy, healthy new year.
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